Adebayo Adenrele
…unveils ThisAbility Budget (TAB) Portal
A Non-governmental organisation under the auspices of Disability Not A Barrier Initiative (DINABI), has called out the Government of Ogun State for neglecting Persons With Disabilities by not allocating any fund to them in its 2025 budget.
The Director of the Initiative, Funsho Olajide raised this concern while addressing journalists in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State capital, to unveil ThisAbility Budget (TAB) portal and report.
Olajide stated this just after raising alarm over the meager 0.048% allocation for disability inclusion in the total budgets of all the six Southwestern states totally N6,607,643,645,479.28.
Olajide lamented that the allocation makes all efforts on the full implementation of the Discrimination Against Persons With Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018 and State Disability Laws fruitless, as success cannot be recorded without inclusive and participatory budgeting and proper funding.
Giving the analysis, he explained that Oyo State allocated N1,222,500,000 (0.179%) from its total budget to disability inclusion, followed by Ondo N691,642,616.26 (0.099%), Ekiti with N309,991,528 (0.082), Lagos with N884,879,644 (0.026%), Osun with N50,891,130 (0.012%) and Ogun State with no allocation.
The Director explained that all efforts to reach out to Ogun State Government to ascertain the cause for the negligence has proven abortive, as no response was made available despite multiple consultations.
He lamented that the low budgetary provision for disability inclusion, inaccessible budget documents and information, limited participation in budget engagement and consultations, have become great barriers and threats to disability inclusion, urging the states to allocate more funds for the welfare and affairs of persons with disabilities.
Speaking on the purpose of the budget, he noted that ThisAbility Budget 2025 also known as TAB 2025 seeks to make budget information available and accessible while also strengthening duty bearers and rights holders on disability-inclusive budget processes in Nigeria.
He urged the public to visit https://www.tab.dinabing.org to download the comprehensive TAB 2025 report and to access quick state-to-state information on disability specific budget lines.
His words, “Today, we stand at the crux of history as we step our feet on a new path to unveil a new report and platform that offers persons with disabilities, budget advocates, researchers, and the general public easy access to budget information and understanding of disability-specific budget lines across six southwestern states of Nigeria.
“ThisAbility Budget 2025 also known as TAB 2025 seeks to make budget information available and accessible while also strengthening duty bearers and rightsholders on disability-inclusive budget processes in Nigeria. It also aimed at creating awareness on inclusive and participatory budget process in order to garner public support for disability inclusion.
“According to Article 4 Section (1a) of the UNCRPD which states that state parties are to adopt all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the Convention.
“Study have shown that full implementation of the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018 and State Disability Laws cannot be achieved without inclusive and participatory budgeting.
“In this 2025 edition (pilot edition) of ThisAbility Budget carried out only in Southwestern part of Nigeria, it revealed that only 0.048% of the total budget of N6,607,643,645,479.28 was allocated for disability inclusion in the six southwest states. This shocking revelation renders all efforts on the implementation of disability laws/act fruitless as no meaningful inclusion can take place with such meagre amount.
“In this report, over 60% of persons with disabilities revealed that they have never seen any budget document (Appropriation law, approved budget, citizens budget etc) of their states.
“It may also interest us to know that from this report, Ogun state never allocated a dime directly to disability inclusion from the information available to us as acquired online having written and also physically requested for data from relevant agency of government in the state with no success. Whereas, Ekiti, Ondo and especially Oyo states displayed utmost transparency and openness in fiscal operations.
“It was also observed that low budgetary provision for disability inclusion, inaccessible budget documents and information, limited participation in budget engagement and consultations, capacity gap among persons with disabilities on budget process, lack of political will on the part of duty bearers, lack of comprehensive disability-disaggregated data and lack of separate and disability-specific budget lines still poses greater threat to disability inclusion”.
